WordwrightWeb’s afternoon of World Cup madness

Yesterday afternoon, our team ventured out to The Harp, a local Irish Restaurant and Pub near downtown to watch USA take on Germany in the World Cup. Although there is no question about our support for the USA team, we do happen to work with one individual who is from Brandscheid, Germany. So, the war was on. It’s all friendly of course!

Now, I happen to not be a big follower of the World Cup, so I needed some background story to catch me up. Most importantly, what’s the rivalry between these two teams? My colleagues had the scoop.

For all of those who were not “in the know” like me:

– Team Germany are the “big dogs” of soccer. They are the number 2 team in the world.

– Team USA are rooted as the “underdogs,” but were currently tied with Germany in points.

– The head coach of team USA is actually the former head coach of Germany. Interesting.

– Since both teams were tied in points, and at the head of their group in the cup, they both can advance whether they won or lost unless there was an unlikely result of the other two teams in the group. Very interesting.

If both teams could advance no matter what, why all the ruckus? Well, Germany is one of the best, so who wouldn't want to beat them? Oh, and USA has not played against Germany since last June. I can see why we are all fired up!

All in all, it was a fun outing for us. USA may have lost, but we still advanced. We heard plenty of USA chanting and heard people cheer seconds before we knew what was happening due to delayed televisions – spoiler alerts!